Linda Reinhold

I was born in Chicago and except for the fact that I nearly died of asthma when I was one year old, I had a perfectly normal childhood. I lived in Chicago until 1954 when we moved to Des Plaines, IL. My only regret is that I was an only child, but being creative helped and I entertained myself drawing and making things and always managed to have a lot of friends.

I was horse crazy from the age of 8 and took riding lessons for 11 years. Always interested in art, I also took private art lessons from age 9 through 12.

We moved to Barrington in 1960 and I graduated from Barrington High in 1966. I then majored in art at Stephens College, Columbia, MO and received my BFA in 1970.

During my college summers I worked for a printing company in Chicago doing all sorts of things including paste-ups for catalogs and flyers. I ended up learning a lot more about advertising there than I ever did in college.

After graduation, while searching for an advertising job in Chicago, I took several free-lance art jobs, trained wild appaloosas, and sold Estee Lauder at Carson’s, downtown Chicago for 6 months. I finally did get a job in advertising at a tiny agency on Michigan Ave. near The Art Institute where I ventured frequently. Then in Dec., 1971, I got married and moved to New York City. The marriage was very short-lived and I again found myself searching for a job, and taking another turn at selling Estee Lauder, until I was fortunate enough to find the most fun job ever at Marvel Comics. Working both on staff and free-lancing as colorist, I loved my job, made many friends in the business and I might have stayed there forever were it not for Barry Windsor-Smith entering my life, stealing my heart and convincing me to go into business with him publishing his art. And so The Gorblimey Press was born in 1973 with me as partner doing everything except the art.

Barry and I worked and lived together for 11 years. I was part of “The Studio” that we shared with Jeffrey Jones, Michael Kaluta and Bernie Wrightson from 1776 – 1979. Barry is an amazing, gifted artist and writer, and admittedly I learned a lot from him; but the relationship had been problematic from the start, and by the summer of ’84, it had deteriorated to the degree that I decided to leave and move back to Illinois and back in with my parents. It wasn’t easy. It was like starting my life over again.

During my job search that fall, I was fortunate to learn of First Comics through a friend of my dearest high school friend, Debbie. I interviewed at First Comics (then located In Evanston) Nov., ’84 and went home with 22 pages of Bill Reinhold original art under my arm to letter. I soon phased into coloring for First full time and moved to Evanston in June, 1985. Thus began my relationship with my husband-to-be, Bill. We worked together, became friends, began dating and married in 1987. We have two beautiful and talented children, Leanna and Michael, two kitties, a very old box turtle and live in a modest house in Crystal Lake where we also work and enjoy the “Joyful noise” our son makes playing drums.

This will be Linda Reinhold’s debut appearance at Tampa Bay Comic Convention!